The MOLTAG SCIENCE DAY 2016: An informative and exciting event, hosted and organized by the PhD students of the MolTag program
The MolTag Science Day is a one-day scientific symposium, organized and planned by the students of the FWF-funded Doctoral Program “Ion Channels and Transporters as Molecular Drug Targets” (MolTag). The first Science Day took place in the first funding period (MolTag1, 2011 – 2015). In November 2016 the students of the second funding period (MolTag2, 2015 – 2019) succeeded in staging the first MolTag Science Day of the second funding period.
The students invited internationally renowned speakers, whose research fits perfectly into the research topics of the doctoral program. Since the scope of research has widened compared to MolTag1, the students selected and hosted five speakers from four different countries.
The event took place on November 7th in the Van Swieten Symposium Hall of the Medical University of Vienna.
All students presented their ongoing PhD projects to the invited scientists and a local audience in two poster sessions.
For the names of the students and the title of their posters see here:
http://moltag.univie.ac.at/docs/program-doppelseitig.pdf
Thanks to all Speakers for their willingness to come to Vienna and their contribution to the successful course of this event:
Prof. John Atack: “Academic drug discovery: An oxymoron or a brave new world?”
Professor of Molecular Pharmacology, University of Sussex, UK;
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/304611
John Atack’s talk on Drug Discovery in Academia, focusing on projects from the Sussex Drug Discovery Centre of the Univ. of Sussex,where he is currently a Director and a Professor of Molecular Pharmacology, was very informative. He gave the students the opportunity, through his talk and later discussions,to get a glimpseof different projects, multiple drug targets and the different stages of drug discovery and development, as well as to receive substantial feedback on their work.
Prof. Beverly Orser: “Preventing memory deficits after anesthesia and surgery”
Professor of Physiology and Anesthesia, University of Toronto, Canada;
Canada Research Chair in Anesthesia; Staff Anesthesiologist, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre; http://orserlab.com/
The OrserLaboratory aims toidentify new treatments for neurological and non-neurological disorders by targeting specific inhibitory neurotransmitter receptors. Her team first identified the unique properties of “extrasynaptic” inhibitory receptors andelucidated the key roles that these receptors play in cognitive dysfunction, seizures, and pain, as well as in bronchial disorders such as asthma.
Dr. Marc De La Roche: “Canonical and non-canonical targeting of colorectal cancer”
Dept. of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, UK
http://www.bioc.cam.ac.uk/delaroche
Marc de la Roche works in the research area of colorectal cancer with his emphasis on the oncogenic Wnt signaling pathway. His expertise covers the work with organotypic cultures which is very interesting for the MolTag community since this cutting edge technology is also currently ongoing in one of the MolTag labs. In addition, his qualifications in disease related cellular signaling allowed the MolTag students to discuss their ideas and research concepts with an expert in the field.
Dr. Lucy Forrest: „Elegant roles of symmetry in mechanisms of membrane protein function“
Computational Structural Biology Unit, Division of Intramural Research, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), Bethesda, MD, USA
https://neuroscience.nih.gov/ninds/Faculty/Profile/lucy-forrest.aspx
Lucy Forrest is a young scientist who currently leads a group at the NIH (National Institutes of Health, US). Her main research interest is investigating membrane proteins, especially membrane transporters, using theoretical and computational methods. Her aim is to provide clear hypotheses, which can be tested experimentally by collaboration partners. Establishing collaborations is also the purpose of the MolTag doctoral program and thus, her research fits well with several topics of our students.
Prof. Karl-Heinz Altmann:
„Total synthesis and functional exploration of macrocyclic natural products“
Head of Dept. of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, ETH Zurich
http://www.pharmaceutical-biology.ethz.ch/the-group/altmann-cv.html
Prof. Altmann’s research interests represent an interface between chemistry and biology, and thus meet the interest of several research groups of the MolTag Program. His research is focused on the chemical synthesis, the biological and pharmacological profiling of biologically active natural products, and their synthetic and semi-synthetic analogs. This research aims at understanding of the mechanism of action of such molecules and the elucidation of the structural requirements for biological activity. It tries further to assess the therapeutic potential of such compounds with the ultimate goal to discover new therapeutics for clinical applications.
The Students:
From the selection and invitation of guest speakers to planning and running the event, everything was organized together by the MolTag students.
Comments of MolTag students:
“It was a great pleasure to have Professor John Atack as a guest speaker for our MolTag Science Day. Due to his longtime experience in neuroscience drug discovery, as well as his work on ion channel targets that cover a range of central nervous system disorders, we were able to gain insight into this research field.”
“We think inviting Lucy Forrest was a great choice. We were very happy to have her here in Vienna and to listen to her great talk."
Besides the organization, the students also prepared two poster sessions, where they showed their own research projects. The presentations increased the interaction amongst students and also with the established researchers who provided precious feedback and suggestions.
To avoid an overrun of the budget, agreed with the speaker, the students successfully contacted the following sponsors who generously supported this event:
- Carl Roth GmbH/Lactan - products for labware, life science and chemicals
- Gesellschaft Österreichischer Chemiker (GÖCH) – Austrias largest chemical society
- Sigma Aldrich/Merck – chemical, life sciences and biotechnology company
- VWR International – chemicals and laboratory scientific supplies
- Waters – analytical technologies
- TCI Europe - leading global manufacturer of fine chemicals for research and commerce.
We thank our sponsors for their valuable support and we certainly thank the Austrian Science Fund, FWF, for supporting this program!
The day ended with a dinner of students and guest speakers at a Viennese “Heurigen”, where lively discussions and interesting encounters continued.
All in all, a very motivated team of students accomplished the mission successfully and thereby created direct and indirect effects to promote their further careers. The MolTag community is proud of this performance and is looking forward to further events!
(co-authored by: Konstantina Bampali, Harald Bernsteiner, Jasmin Morandell, David Siebert, Eva Hellsberg, Alexander N Morley)
For photographs please see the MolTag Photo Gallery (photo credit: Sankalp Jain),